Off My Pace

I haven't blogged in almost a week. This is no doubt a cause for celebration in some quarters, and for those who wish to give credit where credit is due, they should thank lawns and 1/48th scale airplanes for the lull.

Many years ago I was (or thought I was) into 1/48th scale airplane models, and bought pretty much every Monogram 1/48th scale kit there was. Then I realized they were too big to easily display, so they went onto the shelf. There they stayed for literally years, decals yellowing and fracturing, parts warping, boxes being slowly consumed by the desert air, box interiors being slowly colonized by spiders of varying sizes, dust, and things that might be insects and might be probes from an alien civilization.

About a week ago I made the conscious decision to build all of these airplanes before they decayed into complete uselessness, and because I was just going to hang them from the garage ceiling with fishing line, I didn't have to worry too much about interiors, and could build them with the gear up. So in the last few days I've started a Ju-87, a Raiden, an A-26, an A-20, a TBD Devastator, an F4U-4, a C-47 Dakota, an Su-7 Fitter, and a Westland Lysander. Some of them I've actually finished already (the Ju-87, the A-26, and the Raiden). So that's kept me pretty busy evenings, even though I'm not fussing with interiors.

I am also attempting to get a lawn to grow. I was going to landscape the back yard primarily with rocks and gravel, but I changed my mind. The dogs kick rocks and gravel into the swimming pool, walking on rocks and gravel with bare feet is no picnic, and grass would solve both problems. So I've been weeding and removing what rocks I put in and talking nice to my little clumps of Bermuda grass, trying to convince them to take over the whole back yard. Which they will, soon enough.

In a way my Bermuda-coaxing is a statement. Most of our neighbors had sod installed (they have "people" for that, I guess) which in most cases appears to have been an expensive failure. I intend to grow a full head of Bermuda, so to speak, without spending a cent on anything but water. And when they ask me where I got my sod, I'll say I grew it myself because I don't have "people" for that.

Ayup.